Another War Movie flops

Stop-Loss Tanks

Maybe... or maybe a good old fashioned one that doesn't preach too much would fill the bill.

Let's see there have been several Medal of Honor nominees, as well as TWO female Silver Star winners...
And then there's David Bellavia's great book "House to House"

 

When I saw the trailer for this movie and saw how MTV was preaching to me about the war I was pissed. Some Hollywood pukes who know nothing about the Army or any other branch of the military other than in the best day of their life they couldn't have lasted the first week of basic training are talking to our teens about the war.

They take a kernel of truth, the fact that a stop-loss program exists, exaggerate how it is implemented to ridiculous proportions, and make the military and the officials who run it to be a bunch of inhuman boobs. My unit was stop lossed and it is not a pleasant experience, but they certainly do not do so as you are signing your discharge for spite. MTV was just doing their part to feed their liberal propaganda machine. Jerks.

Every soldier who signs up knows what the deal is, namely, that it's the Army's ball and they can change the rules. If you wanted it easy, if you wanted it any other way, stay home and go to college and no one will think any less of you. When they do change the rules in a painful fashion, it's not done for a capricious reason, and if you don't like it, you are most certainly not drafted into this, and you certainly don't have to be in for the rest of your life. Apparently the truth does not make good cinema, only good young men and women.

I am so happy to see that the only way these puke producers are held accountable is at the box office and that they are taking a hit. I hope someone misses their plastic surgery payment.

The article has some puke saying that it is a great movie that's ahead of it's time. How self congratulatory. Hey, if I got to grade all my papers in college I would have had a 4.0 too!

I'll be glad to see this movie exit the theater with a quickness. Good-bye. Good Riddance. I hope the door hits you on the ass on the way out.

 

RE: Re: Another War Movie flops

Ah. I see the mistake the studios are making, they need films where the Engligh get beaten - preferably staring Mel Gibson.

How about "Amarda" - the story of a daring invasion by the Spanish - Don Mel sails to England, beats up the Limey's - get Queen Liz I pregnant and sails home a hero (I'm fairly sure that is how it went).

Or

How about making really good war films that dipict the reality of war - they don't come along very often. I've never been to war - I hope I never go, but I have sat with friend who have been in live fire fights and watched them cry into beers as they talk about seeing their friends die and being scared.

I think "Band of Brothers" is about the best US WWII drama I've seen because it was based on fact with only small deviations from the percieved version of events. It also humanised the enemy - normally a fate not allowed by the victors.

So I agree with Steve - if you want to make a war film, then make a film with well researched accurate history*, otherwise make an action hero film where you run around with a gun on your hip and everyone can know it's bollox. If you want to moralise, write a philosophy book.

*There are not many events of Gulf War 2 that I think lend themselves to a film as most of the main actions were a series of well co-ordinated attaks with little resistance, and the following years are a facinating battle of hearts and minds where I think the US is making genuine progress towards stability - but hardly Hollywood glitz.

 

With due respect to everything else you said and your service, are you sure this is necessarily true? Seems to me a lot of young people freshly out of high school are deceived or in the least mislead by recruiters about just what their serving will entail. They come away with fanciful ideas about what it will be like and are inevitably disappointed.

They're spending hundreds of millions to entice kids into the recruiters office and the recruiters themselves are only doing their part to close the deal. I'm just not so sure that this always entails fully briefing people on just to the extent their signing everything away complete with rule change stop loss scenarios.

Not everyone signs up out of a higher calling to serve their country, in many cases it can boil down to a lack of other opportunity. In such cases a certain amount of persuasion is needed (thus the hundreds of millions spent on ads) and I'm not so sure that the persuaded is always explicitly aware of what their undertaking.

 

RE: Re: Another War Movie flops

Come ON, Spencer... arent you cutting it a bit fine?

NO ONE in the last 4 years has been recruited without knowing what they were signing up for. Why do we constantly look for victims?

To be sure, there's plenty of soldiers come OUT of Iraq with negative views and attitudes. But even volunteers are a cross section of our society. And some of them should never have been accepted, but I think it's better than when I FIRST started reading Mil-Blogs about 5 years ago.

The second or third I clicked on was an unbelievable fuck-up who'd enlisted in the Guard for tuition money...you simply WOULD NOT believe how bad he embarrassed himself... every sentence with an 'F-bomb' and supporting language... blaming EVERYONE but himself for his having to actually DO something other than attend meetings.

If I was his unit commander, I'd have mustered him out immediately and sent him a bill for tuition advanced.

OTOH, he MIGHT have turned out a good soldier. I recall the most frightened I EVER was while in the Navy was when I was in school and the Berlin Wall went up. Flying into Gitmo, during the Missile Crisis with a Mig off the left wing and tracked by Castro's anti-aircraft was not even close!

{added}
Are you guys reading Michael Yon and especially -right now-Michael Totten.

you should be.... there is chronicled the MEAT of our Iraqi experience. you have to think between the lines, but just a small effort will give you some insight as to our future relationships with the people of the Middle East.

And how the most of our returning vets might think of them... good or bad. Optimist that I am, I think .. good.

 

Re: RE: Re: Another War Movie flops

Very true. But even so when the recruiters came around my school last year and gave their presentation they were at pains to not mention the war(s) and refused to talk about it even when questioned about it by the students they were trying to recruit. Instead they talked about tuition, tuition, tuition, job skills, life experience, ect.

I'm just sayin I don't like seeing all the blame laid on the kid who signed up with "he knew what was coming" comments. As if because he agreed to serve that removes all the responsibility of the Army, DoD, government, American public, or President for the said soldiers situation whatever it may be.

 

RE: Re: RE: Re: Another War Movie flops

That's what he has parents for, Spencer... and I dont think you can say that there's no 'contrary influences' in the teaching corps.

 

Here's the deal w/ recruiters. They will answer all of your questions. They are really the only part of the military that functions as a business, in that they have a goal of soldiers to put into the service. As such, they will not answer questions that you do not ask.

What that means is this. The fundamental mission of the Army and all the services is to deter war, and if deterrance fails, to win in combat. That is why the Army exists. When you sign up, there are three rules to remember. It's the Army's ball, they can make the rules, and they can change the rules in the middle of the game. Especially since 11 September, everyone who has signed up for the service should have realized that there is a war going on. Sure, there are more benefits that you get than in years past, college money, a VA mortgage, student loan repayment (in my case, and what a great benefit that was), enlistment bonuses -- mine was a handshake from my recruiter -- and you will carry yourself for the rest of your days in a different fashion than those who have never served. I've been out for 3 years, and I'm older, fatter, and have more hair, but some habits of mine do not change. (And I had time to rediscover that I really like football. The 1994 World Cup? I missed it. I was on active duty then, and had just shipped to Korea the first week of the tournament. All the games were on in the middle of the night. I had been in the Army 5 months then, and I missed the whole tournament between the jet lag and my head spinning like a top, trying to figure out what was going on).

Getting back to the movie, again, the only way that you would be stop-lossed on the way out the door is if something like 11 September or Pearl Harbor happened. When my NG unit was stop lossed, we got the order in the first week of October 2001 after we had just been activated. It certainly is not a pleasant experience. Sure there is a war going on, but some people were looking forward to getting out and moving on, but that is the price you pay for signing up. Our stop loss eventually ended in May of 2004, after we had gotten back from Iraq.

THAT was my issue with the movie. Some little dumbassed MTV puke is going to talk to me about how unjust the Army is and concoct a 100 percent fictitious story about a stop loss scenario that in this day and age simply does not exist? Some little puke is going to cast aspersions on a greater institution than anything they will ever have the privilege of taking part in so that he can get his half-assed picture on the screen? What the hell does anyone at MTV really know about being a soldier? Other than watching A few good men? You can watch that movie until you know Jack Nicholson's dialogue better than he does and that won't make you one iota's worth of being a soldier. Disgusting, and I wish I was a teacher now so I could have this discussion in front of my students.

BTW, if any youthful person on this board is ever thinking about joining the service and has questions, feel free to PM me and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability, and with the added bonus that recruiters will not call you. I served on active duty as a military policeman from Jan 1994 through Dec 1998, and in the OH NG from Jan 1999 through Oct 2004.

 

And as far as the admin's decisions, I quote Colin Powell again -- as far as Iraq, you break it, you bought it. Gen Shinseki was forced out the door to retirement when he disagreed with Rumsfeld's scenario of fighting a 12 division war when you only have 10 divisions. Certainly there are many things we could have done better in 2002 but this is where we are now, and right wrong or indifferent, we have to see it through to it's completion.

Also, I am proud to have served so those little pukes at MTV can film whatever crap they want. However, I will most certainly call them on it.

 

That's why they paid me big staff sergeant bucks

 

I don't have to say much as nobody has better perspective on the issue than Steve...I'm just glad to hear what you're saying from somebody in your position Steve instead of the smoke screens and games that are spoon fed to America's youth who go along with everything on MTV, including politics, because it is the cool and trendy thing to do. Need examples???

Barack Obama...